


In the Soft Corners

by SaoirseKennedy



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, Post-War, Snuggling, blowjobs and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:31:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaoirseKennedy/pseuds/SaoirseKennedy
Summary: Lew isn't good at fixing radiators. He is good at relaxing Dick.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dancinguniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/gifts).



> Based on a prompt given to me by dancinguniverse. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I have no idea how radiators work.

One way or another, Lewis had become a fixer in his time after the war. It started with little patch jobs on the roof or in the basement, under Dick’s wary eye. Of course, Lewis didn’t have the faintest idea what he was doing in the beginning, but one thing he’s always been is a quick learner. Soon the patch jobs turned into small plumbing feats, followed by re-painting the living room and eventually Dick’s room which was really their room, and Hell, why not paint the entire exterior an eggshell white? 

Dick still did the bulk of the cleaning, both inside and out, and most of the time Lewis was happy to let him. 

“Let me get the tough stuff done,” he’d say, in a tone that lent to the ridiculousness of the situation. Dick would stop in the middle of whatever he was doing, and look down his nose at him with a scowl that Lew would be afraid if he hadn’t known Dick inside and out.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he’d mumble so low that if Lewis ever brought it up, Dick could conceivably deny that any such words had come out of his mouth. Usually Lewis would come and kiss the frown off his face, and that would settle that. 

One morning, a morning that shouldn’t really be considered morning, as the sun was nowhere to be found, Nix woke up to a odious clicking sound coming from the radiator. It rattled against the wall and spurted steam. 

He habitually pushed his hand over to Dick’s side of the bed, fully intending to make him get up and fix the demon of a radiator. He may be a fixer now, but he was a sleeper more than anything. 

His side of the bed, however, was empty. Not only that, the bed was far too cold for this hour of the morning. It was almost as if Dick hadn’t been in bed at all, which of course wasn’t true, as Nix had practically dragged him to their bedroom, and pulled him to the middle of the bed, curling in on him and covering him so he was hidden away from everything else. 

“Dick?” he calls out, trying to pry his eyes open. They didn’t want to stay awake, and Lew could almost feel the darkness of the bags under his eyes. 

Before he made it halfway to the door, the radiator groaned again, and Lew stopped in front of it. He’d never actually touched the thing; many times he’d heard Dick mutter in the middle of the night while turning it up and down. Nix would be asleep again before he felt Dick’s weight back on the bed. 

A scream of steam fled up to the ceiling, and Lew waits until it’s calmed again before reaching out to fiddle with the handle. It’s cool to the touch, but fat beads of moisture crop up on the long rivulets in the middle. 

“What the hell,” he mutters, turning the handle once to the right. It hisses in protest, and Lew backs away. Heat puffs at his face in short, labored breaths. The window above the radiator fogs up, and Lewis shakes his head. 

“Why the hell is it so cold?” he says out loud, hoping Dick will pop his red head out of wherever he’s hiding and reveal an explanation. Anxiety peaks in his brain at the thought of where Dick could have possibly gone, and so he focuses on his task at hand, to delay the inevitable. 

Several fiddles later reveal a loose screw in the back, which releases heat away from the room, towards the drafty window and walls. Nix sticks his hand back there, only to be burned by hot metal. It strikes him as funny that a radiator inflicted more pain on him than an entire war ever did. He sucks on his offending finger before reaching behind once again to find the fallen screw. 

He’s got his entire face obscured by the infernal thing, and the sun still refuses to rise, so basically he’s blindly groping around, trying to find where the screw has fallen from. He grunts in frustration, wishing desperately that Dick was there. His wandering brain makes his focus wonky, and he brushes the hot metal a few more times before he takes a break, blowing out a long stream of air. 

“Hey,” a raspy voice calls out, and Nix starts, banging his head on the windowsill above him. 

“Jesus Christ,” he says before he can stop himself. He knows Dick doesn’t really mind when he says this, but he feels slightly dirty. Maybe it’s the old Catholic in him coming back to haunt him.

“Sorry,” Dick says, in a voice that’s slightly off. He glances at him before filing that away for a moment later, after the damn radiator gets fixed. 

“Do you have any idea how this thing works?” he huffs, and he sees Dick drop next to him in an almost grateful way. It’s in the way he gets right to work, assessing the clunking abomination that’s supposed to be heating their sleeping bodies. 

“There’s a screw missing.” Dick seems disappointed that the problem has been figured out so easily, but Lew is too cold and tired to really care. “Do you know where it is?” 

Lewis holds up the screw in front of Dick’s face, and moves out of the way when Dick reaches back, his hand already knowing exactly where to place it. He screws it back in, and immediately heat begins to quietly pour into their room. Dick’s face flushes with it, and he takes a moment to warm up, kneeling next to the radiator. 

“They should really update this stuff,” Lew says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Mmmm,” Dick agrees, and he stands to face Lewis. “I’m sorry you had to get out of your cocoon.” 

“I’m about to go back,” Lewis whispers. “Where did you go?” He wasn’t going to ask directly, but it comes out in a long rush, and like most things with Dick, he can’t stop it. 

Dick fidgets, which isn’t unusual. He’s always moving, in an endless way that exhausts Lewis. More often than not he grabs Dick’s hands when it becomes too much, and Dick will quiet himself enough to rest for a little bit. 

“I was shoveling the driveway,” Dick points to the window. “Look outside.” 

Sure enough, in the slight haze of seven in the morning, huge, fat flakes of snow were covering the sleepy New Jersey suburbs. Lewis doesn’t have the heart to tell Dick that their driveway has already been covered by a thin layer of powder. No doubt Dick would dodge out of the room again, risking cold and flu to have a clear driveway. 

“Did the forecast call for this?” 

“Yes,” Dick looks infinitely amused. “Not that you watch the news anyway.” 

Lewis twitches at that, and looks down at the radiator dubiously. “Is it okay now?” 

“Seems to be.” Dick inspects it again, but doesn’t fiddle with it anymore. 

“Alright,” Nix says. “Come back to bed.” 

Dick sways from foot to foot, glancing back at the door. “It’s already seven. We should be getting ready for work.” In Dick’s defense, he does seem awfully sorry to be saying no to Nix. 

“Dick,” Nixon says, everlasting patience in his voice. “If you think we’re going to work today, you are sorely mistaken.”

“It’s just a little snow, Lew,” Dick says, though he’s inching closer to the ball of blankets Lewis is nestling himself in. 

“A little snow would mean I’d still be able to see the road.” He points to the window. “If I don’t see a road, I don’t drive.” 

“I don’t see how I can argue with that logic,” he mutters, and sits somewhat gingerly on their bed. 

Nixon reaches for him, pulling his arm down into the blankets. Dick smiles tiredly, while Nix kisses his red fingers. 

“What’s up?” He pulls Dick to him completely. 

“What do you mean?” Dick lays his head on Lew’s shoulder, and rubs circles into Lew’s back. 

“I don’t know,” Lewis pushes him down, pulls the multiple blankets over his cold legs, and smiles down at him tenderly. “You seem far away.” 

This is what Lewis always says to Dick, and something Dick almost always chooses to ignore. It’s a non-starter, but at least it lets Dick know that Lew is on to him. 

“I’m right here,” he says predictably. He rolls like a child, till his face is tucked into Lew’s shoulder, and he breathes deeply. 

“I bet you’re glad that you’re in bed now,” Lewis whispers, snuggling down and throwing his leg over both of Dick’s. 

Dick pushes up and rests on his elbows. “Don’t push it,” he scolds, but he leans over to kiss Lew. Of course, he always wants to kiss Lewis, but right now he does it because he wants him to be quiet. It’s far too early for Lewis to be prodding and poking. 

“I’m not pushing anything,” Lewis laughs, accepting Dick’s pecks. He smiles kindly, but he’s already made up his mind to take Dick’s mind off of whatever’s got him distracted. 

Lewis splays his hands on Dick’s thighs, and nuzzles his nose in the crook of his hip. He smiles when he hears Dick sigh and lets his legs fall apart. 

“I know what you’re doing,” Dick says when Lewis starts pulling at his pajama bottoms. He closes his eyes when Lew gets them down, mouthing at his crotch. 

“I would hope so,” he grins, and gets his boxers down around his ankles. Lewis takes his time, because it’s the morning, and the world is as good as dead to him when he’s got Dick in this position. He kisses up and down Dick’s thighs, makes them tingle with sensation. Dick often doesn’t let Lewis tease him for very long, instead flails and chastises and then uses Lew’s own medicine against him. 

“Lewis,” Dick manages, pulling at his hair and shoulders. His eyes are still closed, and Lew has the rare pleasure of looking at Dick as long as he wants. His ginger eyelashes remind him of the cinnamon he sometimes puts in his coffee. The auburn glow of him still amazes Lew, who wakes up every day to the pitch black of his own glow. 

Dick is hot and wanting in Lew’s mouth, and it’s not long before Dick is panting in controlled puffs. It’s something he always does, Lew has noticed. Perfect, practiced pants, to keep his softer noises away from Lew, until the ideal moment. Of course it drives Lew mad, whose own philosophy in the bedroom is to be as loose and vocal as one feels like. 

Accordingly, Lewis moans loudly around Dick, twining his hands with Dick’s on the bed and taking him deeper, while Dick jolts away from the bed. Lew is almost smug about this reaction, but he’s so caught up in the heady smell and feeling of Dick that he’s quickly distracted. 

Normally, Lewis would eventually stop his assault and kiss Dick with the taste of him still in his mouth while Lew rutted on him like a teenager. He was hedonistic in this way, and so far Dick didn’t seem to mind. Quick bouts like this were finished in sloppy way, with clumsy hands and gasping mouths. It was delightful, to be able to be careless. 

“God,” Dick says, when Lew makes his intentions of staying in between Dick’s legs. Lewis starts moaning in earnest now, eager to finish Dick off, for Dick to release that one long shuddering gasp before relaxing completely. 

In the end, Dick comes in a staccato rhythm, thrusting almost wildly into Lew’s mouth. He’s teetering on the edge of abandon, much like Lewis normally is. Lewis breathes deeply, holding him until he’s completely sated. 

“Feel better?” he murmurs in Dick’s ear when he’s crawled up next to him. 

Dick looks like he’s asleep, but Lewis sees his mouth twitch. “Sure,” he breathes, reaching his arms around Lew. 

“Mhmm,” Lewis muses while Dick pushes his hand into Lew’s pants to repay the favor. His hand is slightly cold for a few moments, and Lew relishes in the soft pain of it. 

Dick’s breath is hot and clams up the skin on Lew’s neck. He pushes his feet in between Dick’s calves and swirling memories of cold nights in Bastogne flood his brain over the haze of pleasure. 

“We shouldn’t,” Dick had mumbled into Lew’s frozen ear. A weird sort of icy hail was coming down on their tarp, wiping out any outside noise. 

Lewis couldn’t think about anything besides the feeling of himself and Dick rubbing together, and the soft mewls coming from the back of Dick’s throat. Back then he was fairly inexperienced, and so his noises flowed freely, and Lewis ate them up. 

“Okay,” he said right back, though his hands did not slow down, and Dick only pulled Lewis closer to him, as if trying to sap every inch of warmth out of him. 

Lewis couldn’t cry out then, for fear of being caught out, and so he muffled a stark shout in Dick’s jacket, and didn’t pull his face away until he could no longer breathe.

Now, in their shared bed, Lewis moaned Dick’s name loudly and freely, and even though they were sleepy and dazed in their cocoon of blankets, he was wanton and keening, speaking nonsense into Dick’s shoulder until Dick laughed, breathless. 

“Shh, Lew,” he says thickly. He smiles down on Lew’s dark hair, but Lewis cannot see it. “Shh, sweetheart.” 

Later, Lew will accuse Dick of using endearments to send him over the edge, as he promptly did, with a broken gasp. But now, Lew clings to him, to Dick, who is still smiling brightly above him. 

“Now I’m feeling better,” he sighs. 

Lewis doesn’t comment on that, or ask what had gotten him in a funk in the first place. He pushes through the thick feelings by kissing Dick full on his swollen mouth. He twists to lay on top of Dick, which mixes their messes together, and a drop of satisfaction pools in his stomach. 

“Don’t get up yet,” he says, taking in the sight of Dick’s flushed cheeks. 

“Okay,” he whispers back. 

They’ll spend the next hour or so dozing dreamily, Dick’s hand in Lew’s hair, with Lew snoring softly on Dick’s chest. Dick won’t give up his earlier anxiety, nor will Lew push it. Besides before anything else can be said, the radiator will hiss and scream again, prompting Dick to sigh and look for that damned screw again. 


End file.
